Transcript excerpt:
TAPPER: In January, sir, you rented out your e-mail list to a group selling hidden cures for cancer embedded in Bible verses for the low price of $72.
Don't you lose credibility by attaching your name to things like that?
HUCKABEE: Well, I never signed that letter. I mean, I have a huge e- mail list that I developed over many years and we did, in fact, rent it out to entities.
But my gosh, that's like saying that you run some ads on CNN, do you personally agree with all the ads that run on CNN? I doubt you do. I'm sure there is some for maybe, I don't know, catheters or adult diapers. They're not products that you use or that you necessarily believe in. I don't hold you responsible for that. And in that same way, I don't think people who understand how advertising works would hold me responsible for something that I didn't personally sign up for or endorse.
TAPPER: With all due respect, sir, I think that's kind of a false equivalent. We're talking about medical devices on one hand, catheters and adult diapers, and you're talking about something that I think a lot of people would consider to be hucksterism, in terms of Bible verses curing cancer.
[16:20:08] HUCKABEE: Well, once again, I just say that if people buy the advertising space, whether it's on your channel or in that case, it was in essence my channel, it doesn't mean necessarily that I'm personally identifying it with it anymore than I would expect you to identify with any and everything that is sold on CNN because my guess is, you probably don't control all those things and I didn't actually run that part of my company.
Pardon me?
As usual, Mike Huckabee wasn’t being completely honest:
“The email came directly from MikeHuckabee@MikeHuckabee.com and included an intro message from the candidate about the “important information” from the sponsor.”